February 2008

February 29, 2008

My favorite drawing exercise from my (glory) days as an art major (one of my many majors on the 6-years-and-counting college plan) is the blind contour. For this exercise, you take your pencil (or pen or whatever) pick a starting point on your subject and draw using one continuous line looking only at the subject, NOT at your paper. It is a difficult exercise but the idea is to train yourself to draw what you see, not what you think you see. In general, I have a very hard time drawing what I see (my mind is always messing me up!) so I love to draw this way. Sometimes the drawings turn out hilarious (like when I did a portrait of my son with a 6 inch chin and he looked just like Jay Leno), sometimes the drawings turn out amazingly well (especially when you cheat) and then sometimes, they are totally unrecognizable and go straight to the recycling bin.

I started thinking a few months ago that this style of drawing would lend itself really well to embroidery so I set about to figure out how best to do it. In the process I found one of the coolest products ever (and I think the only product I own that does what it's packaging says it will do...) I can now draw a picture on regular ol' paper, trace it with this pen and then iron it on to the fabric and it transfers just like a real embroidery transfer! I know I am easily amused but this pen is seriously cool.

So this photo is my first attempt at embroidering a blind contour. It is a portrait of Cherry Sue, my sweet puppy dog, done in a stem stitch (for the most part). Cherry Sue is alwayssleeping so she makes an excellent subject. I get the impression that it annoys her when I sit in front of her with my sketchbook (see how she is looking at me?) but no one else in this house will hold still long enough. Well, except me but it's too hard to do a self-portrait when I'm napping.

February 27, 2008

When we first moved to The South, I was standing out on the soccer fields with a group of mothers watching my oldest son, then 7, practice with his teammates. One of the other mothers turned to me and asked which child I belonged to. I pointed out my son, the redhead, and then asked her which child was hers. She pointed to a clean cut, athletic looking 7-year-old and said, "That's my son, Wheel." I said smiling, "Oh, what a cute name! Is that a nickname for something? Does he love cars?" She looked at me, not like I was crazy, but like I was an idiot, and said slowly, so as not to confuse me I reckon, "Yes. It's short for William." Because I am an ambassador-type and wanted to be careful not to offend my southern counterpart, I handled the situation appropriately and with great tact. While wiping away tears and in between snorts, I tried to tell her how funny it was that with her southern accent I thought she said, "Wheeeeeeel" *snort* "Like a tire!" *snort* "On a bike!" *snort* "Not Wiiiiiilllll..." carefully annunciating it properly for her (which she no doubt appreciated.) Well, the two of us clearly did not share the same sense of humor. At all. In fact, she visibly scooted away from me and I'm pretty sure never spoke to me again for the whole season... But, like I said, I am the ambassador type so I'm used to this kind of thing.

Anyway, fast-forward 5 years and we are welcoming the newest baby Wheel into the world. Our dear friends (we have managed to make some friends here!) had their second child, a little baby boy, William Joseph. Actually, he was born many months ago... but this is his Alien Blanket. I make a lot of baby blankets as you will soon see. My pattern, for lack of a better word, is very simple but they are hands-down my favorite thing in the world to create. Especially since I started embroidering a couple years ago (thanks to Alana & Jenny) so now I can add all kinds of cute embellishments! On Baby Will's blanket, the UFO is a pattern from Sublime Stitching (that Jenny Hart is so clever!) and following North Carolina statute 6413, I added his monogram. I hope he is dragging it all over the place as we speak, the little munchkin!

February 24, 2008

We have a junk shop here in my town that I frequent. It is*this* close to being an actual landfill but sometimes I find a real treasure. I laughed so hard when I found this sweet little bird cross stitch that I had to have it. The little black cross-stitched eye (see the detail below) gives the effect of the "x" for the eye of a dead cartoon character. Poor dead birdie...I told the shopkeeper through my twisted tears of laughter that I planned to hang it sideways in my guest room. Yeah, he didn't get it.

February 19, 2008

About a hundred years ago I got married. (It was actually less than 5 years ago, but man, it seems a lot longer.) We decided to have pinwheels as our wedding favor. We were getting married at my mom's house up on a hill where it was always very windy and it seemed like the perfect little thing. I got excited about the idea but I couldn't find any pinwheels on the market that were right. Kara then got the idea to make them out of origami paper, pins, and wooden dowels. It was a good idea except for the fact that they were VERY labor-intensive. She ended up making every single one herself. Like 125 of them. Each one more beautiful than the last. It was the most lovingly insane thing she has ever done for me.

Fast forward a couple years. While I was flipping through a back issue of Martha Stewart's Baby magazine I saw an article on making baby mobiles out of paper. It included an adorable one made out of pinwheels. I was a little sad because my son was already well past mobile stage and it would have been so perfect and at that point we were not sure about having another baby. Well we did. And from the second "pregnant" showed up on the digital test screen I started thinking about making this mobile. Being the procrastinator that I am I left it until right before my due date. Willa decided to show up a week early so it didn't get done. When Kara came up for Christmas this year she not only distracted my kids (and hers) so I would have a solid hour to work on it, she also gave me a self-healing cutting mat and a rotary cutter as a present. (Score!) And now Willa has a little pinwheel mobile above her crib. And all is well.

February 18, 2008

Our aunt Jill and uncle Dan are incredibly talented glass artists up in the Hudson Valley. These miniature hand blown wine glasses were part of a larger goblet made of 100 connected tiny wine glasses that Jill designed for Dan to make. I loved them so much when I saw them during my visit that I hinted and hinted (read "begged") for one of the extras. Instead of just one extra, I got FOUR of my very own, all packaged in tissue in a miniature glassware box that my aunt made. I'm seriously going to design a dollhouse around these someday. I heard Jill just made a beautiful necklace out of them for Alana's birthday but I haven't seen it yet.

February 14, 2008

February 08, 2008

Ta da! Here is my entry for the Amy Butler Sew Inspiring Contest- finally finished! Actually, it has been finished for a couple of weeks now but I was having technical difficulties (which you will come to find is not that unusual...) The guidelines for the contest are very flexible (a bag "inspired by" Amy Butler) which I love and I think will result in a ton of very creative entries. In fact, there are already a bunch of super cute bags over there!!

For me, I really had to think about how I was going to interpret the guidelines. Amy Butler's bags are all so beautiful (gah, her fabrics! *drool*) but they are also very practical and utilitarian (she's a genius). So I decided to try to think practically about what I need most in a bag and go from there. I also loooove to wear aprons so I wanted to incorporate them somehow. I think I do a better job of describing my concept on flickr (and there are more pictures of it there too.) Anyway, I am calling it the Jill Bag. (Jill is another word for a female kangaroo so I thought with the front "pouch" pocket it was the perfect title!! Jill also happens to be the name of one of my most favorite people on the face of the earth so that was an added bonus;) I am very happy with how it turned out!!

February 07, 2008

I love this idea! These are mini pin cushions made from bottle caps! There is a tutorial (among other wonderful things) here. Aren't they cute? I made mine to look like mini cupcakes (um, as if you couldn't see that) and I am going to use them as gift toppers for my sewing friends.

February 01, 2008

We're two sisters who live on opposite ends of the east coast
(although we will always be Midwestern girls at heart). Craft addicts
by nature, but certainly not by training, we love nothing more than
when one of us calls the other up and says "Oh my god, you have to see
what I made."

Both of us toyed at one time or another with the idea of starting a
craft blog. But, since we are normal humans and normal moms (unlike
some of the crafters out there - you know who you are) creative output
was an issue. But with two of us contributing we may have a chance.
We've been working diligently on this blog project for awhile now. And
by "working diligently" we mean "thinking real hard," "paying for an
inactive blog address," and "procrastinating". But here we are,
finally, ready to share all our stuff with more people than just
ourselves.

Our purpose with this blog is to have fun, be creative, share ideas
and make cool stuff. Stuff that will usually fall in the "made with
more love than skill" category, but that's okay. It's our motto. We are
firm believers in the idea that what you make truly doesn't have to be
perfect. You just have to love it and have fun doing it.